Saturday, February 11, 2017

Last night was a triple treat in the world of Astrology! On the menu ~ A full moon (called a Snow Moon when it appears in February); a lunar eclipse and even a comet! Around 12:30 AM, while surfing the internet, I happened upon a photo detailing one of these astronomical appearances. Donned in pajamas and slippers, I grabbed my trusty sidekick (camera), found the largest, zoom lens in the camera bag, turned off all lights in the house, and ran outside. Lady luck was with me, and overhead in the jet-black, night sky, loomed a perfectly round, beautiful, snow-white, glowing moon. My zoom lens is at least five years old and zooms to 300mm, which in the world of zoom lenses, is not that great. Thinking this would be a wasted effort, as many of my previous attempts to capture the moon's beauty have been, I did not have much faith the results produced from all this effort. The thoughts that were really flowing through my mind were, "You really should back in that comfortable bed of yours, but now that you are out here, lets give it our best shot!" So I did; I focused, zoomed, adjusted aperture, changed ISO, switched shutter speeds, and much to my surprise, some very nice photos actually appeared. Once I settled on the best shutter-speed and aperture, the slightest adjustments to ISO made a real difference in the details, and what they say is true, "the devil is in the details"! Until the photos were uploaded to my computer, I didn't think my Snow-Moon photo was that great...and this may not be "that great", but it is the best photo of the moon I have ever shot...thus it is "worthy of the Blog"! This is a running joke in my house; if you do something that "makes the blog", you have really accomplished something outstanding! As for the other two lunar events, when I discovered the lunar eclipse occurred earlier in the day, around 4:00 PM, and the comet was seven million miles away, therefore, barely visible to the naked eye, my disappointment of failing to document them waned. One more accomplishment occurred in this post...look how short it is! Curbing my long-winded descriptions of life's adventures is
a challenge for me, and my new goal is to say more with less!

In fact, I could have said it all with these simple, seven simple words!

Friday, February 10, 2017

I am actually "doing this thing"! (often used phrase from my little brother! "Lets do this thing" ) When I casually received an email regarding this on-line photography class that sends a daily email of instructions and requires a daily photo practicing the skill we learn, it never occurred to me the demands it would present. I know...I know....how hard can snapping one photo a day be? If you read my previous post, you can see why some days are very easy, but other days can be totally frustrating! Regardless, I am into this now and committed to giving it my all. At the beginning of the year, my attitude was, "I don't really have to do the homework, I can just read the email, practice on my own and submit a photo when it works with my schedule"; to now ~ which is "I must take the best photo possible, using all the info I have learned thus far, and must submit my homework everyday at all costs"! My only concession is allowing myself a 24 hour timeframe to submit the photo to Instagram. If I learn as much as I have this month, I might be working for National Geographic by the end of the year! Obviously a joke, but you get the point! With that said, following are the photos from the last two weeks. Some of them aren't so great, but we are practicing skills that often compare various settings, so I am forcing myself to check my ego at the door, and even submit the photos which are not as good as I would like. Another temptation is to edit, and since my goal is to be able to take photos straight out of the camera, I am restraining from that as well. Finally, I want to add all my daily photos to my blog recording them for posterity when I convert my blog to a book through "Blogtobook.com". This will give me a visual record of all my photos for the year as well as the other events that manage to make their way to "The Blog"! So get a cup of coffee or a nice, stiff drink, or even click off now because in order to catch up, this post is extraordinarily long!

Day 20: Freezing motion - OK...I now realize how "bad" this photo looks, and trust me, it was the object of many inappropriate remarks after I posted it! But truly, my focus was solely on the right shutter-speed/aperture and capturing the shot before the quickly setting sun prevented me from completing my "homework". I now can see what everyone else saw immediately! But it took my sister, of all people, to post a comment that said, "Ummmm, when you gotta go, you gotta go"! And in the words of Forest Gump,

"Thats all I got to say about that"!

Day 21: Shooting water motion at slow and fast shutter-speed

Day 22: Freeze moving subject in sharp focus: I was visiting family in Tennessee; it was fun to document the nearby park that holds many memories for me.

It took a lot of shots with numb fingers, to get the moving swings

"frozen in place" exactly where I wanted them!

Day 23: Show movement by "blurring" a moving subject

against a focused background: And I thought Day 22 was difficult!

Day 24: Shoot a moving machine; take one photo at suggested camera setting, one shot overexposed by 2/3 and one shot underexposed by 2/3: This was fun! My mother "posed" for me, and her pottery wheel was the moving machine. I took so many photos by the end of my photo shoot, she actually produced two cups! How often can you work with someone while both improve their hobby's skills?

Day 25: Choose shutter-speed that best describes your story:

Still in Tennessee, I toured the family farm with my mother, my cousin and his dog "Black Jack". Love that name! Now that is one fast dog! The photo opportunities from newly emerging green, winter wheat, blue skies and a dog running at the speed of light were endless. Can you see the joy in his body, as he is unleashed, and allowed to run boundlessly,

wherever his fast, little feet can take him!

Day 26: Move a sentimental object to various spotsin your house and find the spots that provide the best natural light.

I used this "Remembrance Angel"~ a gift to me by my group of high-school friends that are always there for me. Given to me when my younger brother lost his very, quick battle against cancer, I keep her on my windowsill. She not only reminds me of him, but to also pray

for those people I know whom arenin the midst of

fighting this terrible beast we call cancer.

Day 27: Photograph a subject using the best natural light in your house ~ I think this might be one of my all time favorite photos I have ever produced. Cajun, my Golden Retriever, was patient with me and using a beautiful subject like her is half the battle. I love the pose, the light, the focus...and the fact that I didn't have to edit!

Day 28: Shoot something cold and adjust shutter-speed and aperture to suit our photo ~ Nothing fancy here - just a simple cold glass of water. I like the background of shadows and reflections from the water and glass.

Day 29: Shoot something hot in the camera's "Automatic Mode" and then shoot same subject changing shutterspeed,

aperture and ISO to improve it:

This reminds me why I am taking this class!

Photo on the left is obviously the "auto" mode.

Day 30: Shoot a flame on Manual setting, and pick best S/S, Aperture and ISO for photo: I picked the flame from our "Bevelo" gas lantern, which is a made from a famous old company in New Orleans, and even

Day 32: Shoot on Manual and shoot first photo at camera's suggested settings, then adjust only the ISO to shoot 2/3 over and 2/3 under what camera says is correct. This was a great learning lesson for me! First of all, thanks to the newly named (by me) season of "Sprinter",

(Spring +Winter = Sprinter), my Japanese Magnolia is in full bloom on Feb 2nd! I learned that often a subject looks better when you use the ISO to slightly overexpose what the camera meter suggests.

See above!

Day 33: Shoot your favorite drink using highest ISO camera offers in a low light setting ~ I was dreading this assignment because high ISO causes graininess, or "noise", as photographers like to say. Coffee is my favorite drink (in the morning), and to make it more interesting, I photographed the European style I use to make it! You have to admit, a plain old cup of coffee is pretty boring, but catching water in the air is kind of cool. The ISO in early morning light gave a soft glow to the photo...I love it. However, it took two pots of coffee, and if you look closely, you will notice I actually missed the porcelain filter

and watered my counter in this photo!

Day 34: Exploring the limits of ISO by using the lowest ISO setting possible in a low light situation ~ "Balance" was the word given to us to use for our photography subject. After racking my brain, I chose this figurine holding glass balloons that are carefully "balanced" on the string/wire she is holding. My girls were often reprimanded for touching those glass balloons, and you can see that one is even broken! These settings produced another cool effect that I never knew was possible without editing;

hip, hip-hooray ~ I am learning a lot!

Day 35: Learning to use a histogram ~ the instructor said lots more coming on this topic later, but for this lesson, she wanted us to see how ISO affects histograms. In short, overexposing a photo by only adjusting ISO levels after light meter is at "0", helps in certain situations to avoid noise and histogram should move to the right. The subject was to be black and white, because noise (grain) is most obvious in the color black. I chose a favorite photo I took of my mother, wearing a hat I knitted that just happened to match a scarf she treasures

from her father. How sentimental can we get here? Sniff, Sniff!! Anyway, the top photo is at correct exposure according to my camera meter. We were to overexpose the second photo by increasing ISO one stop, and yes, my histogram moved to the right! Bottom photo is overexposed, but this was done to exaggerate histogram's movement. Now I know, to barely up the ISO

for grainy blacks, and can double check histogram!

I never knew how histograms should be used before this class!

Day 36: Determine highest level of ISO you can use for a photo

The word given for the subject to use on this assignment was "Compromise"!

This class is hard enough without giving us words to figure our models around! I get why the word was chosen. I had to compromise "sharpness" to capture the ambient light for the tone of this photo. However, my already overloaded brain cells were close to an intellectual explosion! A bit of a stretch, I chose "Pound-Cake", our very demanding cat that came from the local animal shelter. We compromised; if he would continue sleeping, while I adjusted the various settings required to capture the setting sun and waning shadows, I would use him instead of our dog as a model! Feeling quite neglected having not yet been used for a homework assignment, he co-operated,

resulting in this photo. How totally relaxed does he look?

Why can't I be a cat????

Day 37: Using the same subject and setting, take photo changing the three components of the "exposure triangle" (shutter speed, aperture & ISO) . Goal is to keep exposure looking as equal as possible. ~ We were literally in the middle of tornado warnings, and "Toula" my very energetic six month old Golden Retriever puppy, kept giving me these pathetic, wistful looks as she begged me to go "play" outside! These were the two photos that had equal exposure with different settings. We were so lucky that day; a tornado touched down less than fifty miles from us and did major damage, but we had no problems except a dog that was bored to tears as I took thousands of photos of her!

Day 38: Practice shooting a motionless object by taking a photo at every aperture stop, largest to smallest, while balancing S/S and ISO to keep light meter at "0". Used my beautiful eggs from my Aracauna chickens for a subject and the top photo was taken at wide open aperture (f/2.8)

while bottom photo take with the smallest (f/16), and felt the exposure was equal on both. After posting this on Instagram, I was surprised how many of my online

photography classmates had not seen green eggs before!

Last but not least ~ Day 39: Same assignment as yesterday, but we had to use slowest to fastest shutter-speed, and take a photo at each stop using exposure triangle to balance exposure. Whoo -hoo!!! I am caught up now, and have learned my lesson to keep up on a weekly basis! I promise to keep up, as this post nearly killed me! We were supposed to use "games" as a subject...so I used my neighbor's Mardi Gras tree in his yard!

How did I justify this? Simple...

Mardi Gras = Fun ~ Games = Fun

therefore Mardi Gras = Games!!!

Good thing we aren't really graded here, or I think the teacher would write a big, fat, red "F" on the assignment for not following instructions! However, my photo is an A-plus in my opinion...what was even cooler than learning to keep the exposure balanced regardless of shutter speed, was how the background magically disappeared with the large apertures. I did not move the camera at all while taking the first of the the whole photo series. First photo on left taken at 1/50th of a second~f/1.8 to the last photo on right, taken at 1/4000th of second~f/16. If I didn't take this photo myself, I simply would not believe a lens with a wide aperture could literally blur items right out of background. And that my friends, was yesterday's homework! I will not subject myself or anyone else to this many of my "Guided 365" photos in one post again! Now I have to go take today's assignment, and then get something besides photography and blogging done today!

Thursday, February 2, 2017

I am working harder then I ever imagined when I casually signed up for this online photography course at the end of last year A promotional email from

"Guided 365" ~ an online photography class promising to considerably improve my photography skills ~ caught my eye. The icing on the cake was the 50% discount; I bit - hook, line and sinker! My New Year's resolution was to resurrect my blog. If I could produce a daily photo, bringing my sadly neglected blog back to life should be fairly simple.

"Great idea...just do it"! I thought, "how hard can it be to learn one new skill a day, and take a daily photo"? What I wasn't thinking about is all the effort it takes behind the scenes to produce that perfect photo; one you aren't embarrassed to post on Instagram for not only the instructor to view, but the other intermediate and professionally skilled classmates, as well as your personal friends. On top of that, I quickly realized that despite not being graded on daily homework, my photograph was ranked by "Likes" and maybe, if it was really good,

people would even comment! No, I wasn't planning for that at all!

So here is a peek into what it takes to get such a photo! Yesterday's photo idea came to me when I saw "Toula" (my six month old Golden Retriever) on the floor looking extremely adorable. Homework for that day was to shoot on manual, and although I am pretty good at juggling shutter-speed and aperture, we now had to integrate ISO levels into the mix. When I saw Toula laying there,

inspiration struck; "Hey, I will wait for Toula to fall asleep, have plenty

of time to adjust all three settings, and voila ~ I will post the.......

perfect, best of show, gold star, A-plus

(you get the picture)......photo"!

I couldn't believe my good fortune when she actually began to fall asleep. Very slowly and quietly, while holding my breath in hopes that she was just drifting off to sleep, I got down to eye level with Toula. You can see from the photo above, that she was almost asleep...but not quite.

Now in position, with camera in hand on properly adjusted settings, thoughts of

"only one more minute!",ran through my mind!

That was, until I heard the sound of a barking dog outside, and just like that ~ Poof ~ my highly anticipated and structured pose went out the window! Toula's head popped up, and she was now wide awake. However, by this point, the exact image of

the photo I wanted to take was burned into the left side of my artistically challenged brain,

and already counting the many "Likes" my photo would generate!

Determination to make it happen was even stronger, and my

"To Do" list for the day went out the window.

"Plan B" began to form: I stroked her head, spoke in a soothing voice and carefully coaxed her back down to a good position on the floor. She must have been ready for a nap, because it didn't long for her to drift back to doggie-dream land. "Wow, this is my lucky day", I thought! Clicking away on my camera, I was on my way to a

perfect, Ansel Adams like, award winning

sleeping dog photo...

that is, until I stopped snapping and took a peek at the back viewfinder screen. It was perfect; except for one thing - do you see it in the above photo?

The perfect photo was clearly within reach; if only I could rearrange that uncooperative ear.

Very carefully, without disturbing her deep slumber, I slowly stretched my hand and silently began to rearrange the one thing standing in the the way to my success. Just as the ear was back into
its God-given designated spot, and I was back down

on the floor at eye level with camera in hand, my luck ran out.

She yawned and performed a huge, big doggie stretch!

It was the kind of stretch that originates from the front toe-nail of a paw, and ripples

all the way down the body until it disolves at the tip of the tail. This stretch, combined with rolling over onto her back and a frantically wagging tail, revealed it was all over! At least, for the time being; but not in the artistic (and stubborn) left part of my brain. By now, it was clear to me, that I MUST have that shot! For the next few hours, I let her play outside in the yard, took her on a walk, threw the ball for her, fed her a nice big meal, and stopped just

short of slipping some drugs into her drinking water (just joking here!)

Finally, after three long hours, signs of an

impending nap were becoming evident!

As she lay down in her dog bed and started to get comfortable, my brain was in high gear: "No, not there! The gold wall is a terrible background, and the dark-blue dog beds won't highlight your beautiful, golden fur. In a voice dripping with honey, I said, "Toula, don't you want to leave that comfortable, soft bed and lay down on the cold, hard, wooden floor in this exact spot; where the window on the North side of our house produces soft, diffused natural light that bathes your body, allowing your coat to shine like spun gold? Where the rich tones in my hardwood floors will complement the golden highlights of your fur, and the plain, (but surprisingly clean, especially when I can "blur my background") white, walls have no visual distractions to the viewer, enabling you to 'POP" from the photo?" Clearly, this was not what she had in mind. Every attempt to move her there resulted in a trip right back to that comfortable bed of hers. Hmmm., what to do now? Give up? Not an option at this point! I enticed her to my "Perfect Spot" with her favorite treats, sat on the floor with her head in my lap, while using the most soothing tone

I could muster to tell her what a wonderful dog she is.

After about fifteen minutes, I felt her breathing slow down and body go limp.

Success ~ maybe I should be a "dog whisperer"

NOT!

What I can do is get that perfect photo now!

I had already moved her body into the correct angle while sitting with her, correctly positioned her floppy ears, and stroked every hair into its perfect position. It was TIME! She didn't bat an eye when I slipped out from under her...my heart was beating fast and adrenaline flowing while I moved at a snail's pace to slip back into position for the big moment. Every muscle was tense as I sat in place willing her sleepy eyelids to slowly drift downward. And believe me, it was ever so slowly! Just when her eyelid was millimeters away from being perfectly closed, they would crack half-way open to look at me, and restart the process over again. "Patience is a virtue"; there is way too much time invested to give up now"! Instagram "Likes",

"Comments", and maybe even an "Emotive", were just a click of a shutter button away now.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

I am visiting family and friends in Tennessee, and luckily my visit coincided with the birthday of Amy Jane, cousin/ little sister. We laugh because my family is "birthday challenged" to remember the date of someone's birthday and must resort to many tactics in order not to forget them. However, once we remember that important day,

we go to great lengths to mark it, and try to make the birthday girl or boy feels loved and special!

Rule Number One

The birthday girl can do no work! They are "queen" for the day and cannot help with the normal, routine chores of the day like, setting the table, cooking, emptying garbage, unloading dishwashers...etc. Amy Jane took this rule to a new level, and even stayed home

from work to enjoy the whole day with us to do "nothing". This is a photo of her,

lounging in front of a glowing fire, enjoying her day of no responsibility.

Rule Number Two

You get a home-made birthday cake! My mother made Tiramisu and it was divine...the birthday candles weren't trick candles, but did something I haven't seen before; the flames from each one glowed a different color. If you look closely in the following photos,

you might be able to see them in action.

Rule Number Three

You get to choose whatever you want for birthday dinner....this birthday dinner consisted of

Now this is an important rule that is often ignored as one gets older. Children never fail to follow this rule, but adults too often let this one go by the way side. That rule is to

lick the candles, once you have successfully blown them out. Amy Jane needed no reminding of this

rule - So remember....stay young ~ lick your candles!

And finally ~ the best rule of all ~ Rule Seven

Open your presents!!!!! There are many variations of this rule; you can take your time and try to guess what it is, carefully loosen the tape and remove the wrapping intact, or you can go wild and rip the paper to shreds in no time flat! It is your choice on how to follow this rule!

Rule Number Eight

Elaborately give thanks that someone actually got you the very thing you have been wanting or needing for the entire past year! It is a miracle; and now your life is complete.

That is...until next year's birthday rolls around!

Oh, I almost forgot the last birthday rule. Now this rule is the only one that is optional.

It is called Guided365, and we will literally get a daily email every day this year, with an

emphasis on various skills that will build upon each other.

This is no wimpy, kindergarten course... within the first

two weeks, we are already off the "auto" setting, and shooting

on the Program and Aperture settings. Next week, we move to the manual setting. I am

a self-taught photographer that has read thousands of blogs, studied many an article,

and poured through my camera manual countless times to figure out exactly what

all the buttons and settings actually do! This blog is truly the outlet for my

love of photography, combined with

my love to write and journal.

I won't post all the daily photos we submit for "homework", but will cherry pick the best. Don't think that every photo you see here turns out perfect, because for every photo posted on this blog, I probably took ten to twenty shots to "get it right"! Each day we get

an email that explains a topic, gives us "prompts" of how to take a photo for homework, and we post it to Instagram with #guided365 and # of each day...which I had no idea how to use when I

started this class! I am learning so much! The goal for above photo was to pick one part of a subject's face, and bring it into perfect focus, while blurring the background.

Secondly, we were challenged to shoot with a large aperture (which means very little light comes through the camera) and capture a "sun-flare". The reason photography is so confusing is that large aperture means small len's opening. This took many practice photos and lots of patience!

Toula, my trusty photography assistant, and faithful model, was of little help! I had to kneel, and get down low to the ground, in order to shoot

For this assignment, we were asked to take a photograph on Aperture mode. Once we had that photo, we had to manually override the light meter, and shoot same photo one stop lighter, and one stop darker. As I previously stated, this is no baby course! We were to post the best photo from the three. Mine turned out to be the photo that was manually stopped down one stop,

(in layman' s terms that means to make it darker then the camera computer originally photographed) teaching us that even as good as digital cameras are now days, the

camera doesn't always choose the right exposure!

That is why you should shoot on the "Manual mode", if you are a serious photographer.

I know how to do this; but this lesson and homework drove the point home!

And the final photo of the week was to take everything we learned, and roll it into one photo! This entailed photographing a moving subject, all in focus, with the right exposure and a blurred background! My sweet six month old Golden Retriever, ("Toula")

helped me achieve this, as she was heading to the river for another dip.

"Only in Louisiana", does one enjoy seventy-three degree weather in mid-January, and joyfully jump in and out of a river! I am going to make "Friday Fotos" a weekly routine, so I can post my best photos of the week, and hopefully document inprovement

of my photography skills as we move through 2017! Maybe, I can even invite my classmates to join me, and post their best photo of the week on my Friday post! There is a lot of talent in my class, and as you can tell by this post, I am excited about it!

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Our favorite place to spend weekends and holidays is the one hundred year old "Logcabin" that has been in Gary's family for, well....One hundred years! Constructed in 1905, it is now actually 112 years old! This is the original log room, built back in the day when there was no electricity, no air conditioning, and the only heat source was this fireplace that was painstakingly built by hand, rock by rock. Gary's grandmother would tell us stories about how her father and his friends would have "log stripping parties", when they all sat around stripping bark off the logs cut from the property. Oh, if these walls could talk! When Gary and I decided to purchase it from the family twenty years ago, it had not been used in at least fifteen years, and we spent every weekend (I called them "workends") renovating the plumbing, electricity, and just about everything needed to actually be able to use it! It truly was a monumental task, but so worth all the blood, sweat and tears we poured into this place!

All three girls could come home for the weekend due to the upcoming Martin Luther King holiday. Last night was just spent catching up on sleep (Elizabeth, now in her second year of vet school had pulled an all nighter for her Friday test), and the other two girls chatted about things that girls chat about...makeup, friends, and life's general adventures!

This may look like an ordinary scene from a river bank, but this

Palmetto plant has an unusual story.

Twenty years ago, it was but an ordinary, two-foot, house plant purchased from Home Depot with the purpose of sprucing up our newly purchased, very tiny, first home. Not having quite the botanical knowledge I now possess, I had no clue that it was an out-door plant, and my new, green friend quickly began to turn brown. When it seemed there was no hope of saving it, I put it out on the corner for the garbage service to take. Unbeknownst to me, Gary rescued it, and planted the "dead" plant down on the river bank, by our logcabin. Now, either Gary has a super green thumb, or there is some powerful fertilizer and nourishment in that soil down there, because our dead plant not only came back to life, but it is still thriving, and now is at least twenty feet tall! Do palmettos ever get that tall? It has survived temperatures ranging from 105 to 15 degrees, floods that covered it for weeks, hurricanes, droughts, and who knows how many various pests and bugs that have attacked it. Right now, we are in the midst of the season I call "Sprinter" - (Winter and Spring together - 70 degrees today), so it doesn't look so great, but come Spring, it will be

growing, green, big and beautiful! Good move Gary!!!

Another pleasant discovery this morning!

We have had this natural, sand beach across from

us on the other side of the river bank, but this morning as I was

photographing the "Super-Palmetto Plant",

I discovered.....

We now have natural white sand on our side of the river bank! The recent

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About Me

I am "Mom" to three incredible, wonderful girls (I know, I know ~ I am a bit biased - but hey, aren't all Mamas...that is what we are here for ~ to champion our children!); a wonderful husband who doesn't get near enough credit in my blog; three gorgeous girl dogs; 15 egg producing chickens; one squawking cockatiel, two independent cats, 13 baby producing rabbits ~ yes the saying "breed like rabbits" is true; one cooing dove; seven hay and feed eating horses; two turtles that do nothing; and a partridge in a pear tree (had to say it!). This is a random blog that depicts a bit of what our crazy life is like when you mix them all together! If you have a minute ~ become a follower! If you like my posts ~ leave a comment. Enjoy the ride......